North korea train

Bombardier Sifang, the Chinese joint venture of the big Canadian maker of high speed trains and commercial aircraft, reportedly will supply 80 of its Zefiro very high speed trains to China's Ministry of Railways. The trains will have a top speed of 380 kilometers per hour, and their development and sale positions Bombardier to challenge the world market leaders in high speed train technology, Alstom and Siemens. Alstom has marketed its famous TGV in Korea and Spain, while Siemens has sold versions of its Velaro--based on the ICE3 super-express trains used in Germany--in China and Spain. In December, the Siemens Sapsan ("peregrine") will start service on the Moscow-St. Petersburg line in Russia. A similar Siemens train is a candidate for a high-speed corridor that could link San Francisco and Los Angeles. That would be a first for true high speed train technology in the United States, as the Acela train used in the Northeast corridor--a derivative of the TVG--has not performed at full … [Read more...] about North American High-Speed Train Opportunities

The Pirate Bay has found a new haven, and it’s one place in this entire world where its data will be guaranteed to remain untouchable by irate corporations. This morning it was reported that The Pirate Bay has been given (and accepted) virtual asylum by Kim Jong Un, and the group is running its traffic through North Korea. As wonderfully insane as the story may be, it’s nothing but a mere hoax. Here’s the memo The Pirate Bay sent, duping the press: “This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high. At the same time, companies from that country is chasing a competitor from other countries, bribing police and lawmakers, threatening political parties and physically hunting people from our crew. And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people … [Read more...] about The Pirate Bay’s virtual asylum in North Korea story is a hoax – for now

Recent research from security firm Cloudmark has raised doubt about the purported connection between North Korea and last November's intrusion on Sony Pictures Entertainment's computer networks.The FBI last week continued to press its case that North Korea was behind the cyberattack, which flooded the Net with intellectual property, confidential correspondence, and employee data stolen from the company.Although the bureau failed to persuade some folks that Pyongyang was behind the Sony attack, President Obama wasn't among them. He imposed sanctions on North Korea in retaliation.Evidence linking the country to the Sony raid has been dribbling from the FBI since the incident occurred, but Director James Comey last week revealed at a Fordham Law School cybersecurity forum what appeared to be the smoking gun.For the most part, the Sony attackers hid their activity behind proxy servers, he explained, but occasionally they slipped up, and the FBI was able to trace them to their point of … [Read more...] about SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY Sony Sortie’s Smoking Gun Still Missing

Google appears to have supplanted Facebook -- which had supplanted Apple -- as the likely candidate to acquire Israeli start-up Waze.Google is prepared to pony up US$1.3 billion for the company, according to the Israeli business newspaper Globes. Last month, reports surfaced that Facebook was working on a $1 billion deal for Waze. And that was only after Apple, in late 2012, offered $500 million for the company.At the time of Apple's offer, it was believed Waze was seeking $750 million, so it looks like it was a prudent decision to hold out.Waze is a crowdsourced mobile mapping service. It derives real-time information from its users -- all 47 million of them.Waze has not yet commented on the Google acquisition report.[Sources:Globes;Reuters]William Hague, Britain's foreign secretary, defended the nation's data-gathering habits following reports that GCHQ -- the UK's "eavesdropping center," in the words of the BBC -- had gone around laws to collect info on citizens.Hague declined to … [Read more...] about TECH TREK Google Now First in Line to Acquire Waze

It has become a morbid habit for me every Sept. 11 since the attacks: I soak up all the media I can about that day in New York City. I put on DVDs, seek out TV shows on the History Channel, scour the Web for any new videos. My real focus in on the broadcast coverage of that day, watching anchors and reporters -- some of them former colleagues -- react to the second plane hitting, the Pentagon's smoke streaming, the towers falling. Archival footage of national and cable news as well as local New York TV, radio broadcasts captured in documentaries -- all of it takes me back to an impossibly sunny day and my last week in my midtown Manhattan apartment before moving to Atlanta.Maybe this habit is within me because I was in between jobs that day, laid up bleeding and sore after a medical procedure, and the biggest story of my life was happening a few miles south of where I was. For all I know, if I had been downtown that day, working for some news organization, perhaps I would feel … [Read more...] about OPINION The Post-9/11 Internet: A Breeding Ground for Anger and Lies

Chinese telecom ZTE may have ended 2012 in the red, but a new report alleges there was enough in the coffers for bribes.ZTE's Mongolia office is being investigated for bribery, according to China's IT Business News. The outlet is also reporting that Mongolian anti-corruption officials have already unearthed proof of bribes doled out for that country's national digital education project.While the IT Business News story is a bit light on sources, it fits with ZTE's recent history. Last month, ZTE was accused of bribing officials in Kenya to win a government contract. In June, ZTE execs were sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of corruption in Algeria.[Source: Tech In Asia]South Korea is taking a proactive -- and youthful -- approach to bolstering its cyberwar defenses.A government program, which wrapped up earlier this month, provided specialist training to some of the nation's brightest young computer experts. The training program -- which covered areas such as … [Read more...] about TECH TREK Bribery Investigation Rumors Haunt ZTE

Facebook has begun labeling some of the satirical news articles that appear in users' news feeds with a tag designed to prevent readers from mistaking the content for genuine news.Originally discovered by Ars Technica, the social network's "[Satire]" tag is apparently part of an experiment that's been under way for a month or so."We are running a small test which shows the text '[Satire]' in front of links to satirical articles in the related articles unit in News Feed," Facebook said in a statement provided by company representative Eva Grzesik to TechNewsWorld. "This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units."The tag originally was observed in the "related articles" box associated with stories from the Onion, but the rules for its application don't seem to be entirely clear. Original posts on friends' feeds don't appear to warrant the tag, nor do the Onion's own official Facebook page or articles from … [Read more...] about Facebook Adds Training Wheels for the Humor-Impaired

The padlock on a browser's address bar is supposed to give Net travelers some security in insecure virtual space, but that's not always the case. Some dangerous flaws lurk behind the padlock.They can weaken the effectiveness of encrypted Internet connections and compromise TLS/SSL processes, including domain validation, end-to-end encryption, and the chains of trust certificate authorities have put in place, Google points out at its SSL certificate transparency website.The flaws leave the doors open for a wide range of security attacks, including website spoofing, server impersonation and man-in-the-middle attacks, the company said.In the past, there hasn't been a way to determine what SSL certificates a certificate authority has issued. That creates a problem because all certificates are trusted by a Web browser no matter who issues it -- even though some CAs may have better security and fraud controls than others."There are over 300 certificate-issuing authorities, and they're not … [Read more...] about SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY Google Pushes Transparency for SSL Certificates

Tesco, a UK-based supermarket giant, is installing hundreds of screens that will scan shoppers' faces while they wait in line at its gas stations. The information gathered from the shoppers will then be dished to advertisers.Tesco struck a deal with Amscreen, which makes OptimEyes, a system that works by using a camera and TV-style screen. The camera leers at customers and estimates their ages, sex and how long they looked at a displayed ad.One could be forgiven for anticipating a backlash. Over the summer, Brits wereirked with the installation of smartphone-tracking technology affixed to recycling bins. Perhaps predictably, people seemed to resent the idea that they were being watched, and that the watcher planned to turn their personal details into advertising data.OptimEyes reps are eager to point out that the technology does not store images or recognize individuals.[Source:The Telegraph]North Korea's new Samjiyon tablet doesn't connect to the Internet, but it does come equipped … [Read more...] about TECH TREK Tesco Goes TSA on Shoppers to Grab Marketing Data

Six Hollywood studios have banded together in a copyright infringement lawsuit against Megaupload, the wildly popular (although now shuttered) site that, in its heyday, was ground zero for file-sharing.The suit doesn't specify an amount of damages, but does say that the studios should be entitled to US$150,000 per copyright infringement, as well as profits earned by Megaupload.U.S. authorities claim Megaupload facilitated $500 million worth of copyright infringement, and that the website and its kingpin, Kim Dotcom, generated about $175 million. Dotcom, a German national, is currently in New Zealand, where he's battling extradition to the U.S.At its apex, Megaupload is believed to have been among the 15 most-visited websites in the world.The six studios participating in the suit are Disney Enterprises, Paramount Pictures, Universal City Studios, Columbia Pictures Industries, Warner Bros. Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox Film.[Source: The Wall Street Journal] The governments of … [Read more...] about Courtroom Drama: Hollywood Sues Megaupload